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The Technocratic Labor Thesis Revisited

bob.catley{at}newcastle.edu.au

In the 1970s Australian New Left theorists used the Technocratic Labor thesis to criticize the ALP. This held that middle-class university educated people were taking over the ALP and moving it to the right. Thirty years later there appears to be much substance to their argument. The ALP has increasingly been led by middle-class people and has moved to the right. It has also narrowed the recruiting base for its national parliamentarians, most of who are now groomed within the party and its affiliates rather than being drawn from the wider community. Nonetheless, the political utility of the argument may be questioned since most of the Australian workforce is now in the services sector and many are also middle class and university educated.

Key Words: Australia • Labor • New Left • technocrats • unions

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